[Music]
we just finished up a
long and legitimately interesting
conversation with the president of el
salvador naive bay kelly
we talked to him about the immigration
crisis from his perspective which of
course is different from our perspective
but the surprise was
his perspective isn't that different
as he pointed out again and again in our
conversation
the mass movement of poor desperate
people north in search of a better life
isn't good for anyone it hurts all
countries involved
including his watch this
mr president thanks for joining us thank
you tucker for inviting me so there
are an estimated 2 million salvadorans
living united states maybe a little more
maybe more and more coming now yeah why
do you think
so many people have moved from this
country to the u.s well it's obvious i
mean our country has failed
to provide two basic things which are
the two main drivers of immigration
which is the lack of economic
opportunity and the lack of security
if i mean most people won't like doesn't
want to leave their country
right they they like their culture they
like their food
they like their weather i mean it's it's
their country they have their family
members here their friends
they live there most people leave their
country because of two main reasons and
those are the two main reasons
and if you add up the civil war we had
in the 80s well that was the main driver
at the beginning and then you have
people you know that have cousins over
there and then the customer says oh come
here and you'll write a job here and
there's
relative security based on what you have
over there and what you have here
and so those are the main drivers of
immigration our country has failed
to provide security and economic
opportunity so people leave so people
leave
so but if the richest country in the
world says if you
cross over the border we will give you
free health care free education all
these benefits
i mean that's a draw isn't it of course
it's an incentive i mean
it's everything it's in everything in
life is pros and cons right yes
so you have for immigration you have a
con that probably you don't know the
language or you have to
the journey is a difficult one you may
die in the journey
but if in the end you will receive a lot
of things of course it's a it's a
the pros go up and the guns go down so
it depends
it's an incentive game here and uh if
for example if here in el salvador we
have better jobs and better security
it's less
it's less of an incentive and you can
see it in the numbers
we haven't changed the country 180
degrees in two years and one in
one year and nine months we have been in
government of course but if you see the
numbers two years ago you see the
numbers now immigration from the
southern has going has gone down
and it's a couple of reasons but one of
the reasons is that
we have improved security by 75 percent
i mean
we the homicide rate has go down by 75
percent and the violent crimes
have go down by 75 and economic
opportunities are a little better than
what they were before
two years ago and there's a more there's
a little more hope
here that the future is going to be
better so that lowers the numbers that
well
that's why you have caravans of ten
thousand people going out of honduras
and you don't have any cameras going up
from el salvador but two years ago a
salvador was bigger than honduras and
immigration
so you have you have incentives and
drivers here
like like i told you before economic
opportunities and security and you have
incentives over there
what you will find at the border and
what do you find inside and then with
the
law enforcement over there losing
energetic risk-taking people is
obviously bad for your country you want
to keep people like that here
do you resent the fact that the united
states has offered all these incentives
for people to leave your country and go
there no no i've never resent that but
i just think that for a country it's
it's not profitable to gather people out
first it's immoral i mean you need
to provide for your people right yes
that's that's a the moral issue but you
also have an economic issue
if you send your hard-working people and
you're
talented people and people that want to
work and want to risk it just to go and
work
you want to keep them here because those
will be the drivers of your economy you
don't want them there
so they could send a remittance which be
a small portion of what they will earn
and will they
produce you want them to produce here
but you're
you're talking about problems that have
been there and not only the suburb but
in a lot of countries in latin america
for
the last four decades and this
this immigration thing has is just
feeding on
[Music]
dependency on immigration on the
countries that drive it
so it's it's not good for for the united
states and it's not good for el salvador
the best thing for both of us
is to keep our people here and to
provide for our people right here in our
country
and that's what people here want yes
so at the end it's not i won't resent it
of course but i
i think that it's better if we can keep
our people here that's our job and
morally does that's the thing we have to
do explain
quickly if you would what you just said
it's not good for the united states to
become dependent on immigration what do
you mean by that no no
uh latin american countries if
if you don't provide for your people
economic opportunities if your economy
is
doing bad if your security is doing bad
people are going to people going to
leave
and they're going to go and try to find
a rich country right they're not going
to leave for guatemala right they're
going to
go and they want to go to the united
states
so that makes this country's dependent
on immigration because
what you you become an exporter of
people
you're not exporting pro products or
services you're exporting people
so that makes your economy dependent on
that because then that people
those people send money back right to
their home countries which is not
a good economic formula but makes the
economies depend on that
so when you keep these countries
depending on that
the economy is like a vicious cycle so
it's bad for the united states because
immigration will go up and it's bad for
our countries because people leaving the
country will go up as well so
it's it's bad for both of us smart yeah
thank you thank you
conversation went on and on and turn to
ms-13 we're actually going to a prison
tomorrow to interview
ms-13 members here in el salvador but
you'll see the whole thing
on fox nation as part of original series
pretty soon probably next month